“The Message”
Creative Staff:
Story: James Patrick
Art: Rubine
Colors: Valentina Briski
Letterer: Carlos M. Mangual
What They Say:
Douglas, an interdimensional astronaut, has one last chance to save his world. But is it worth what he will lose? With everything on the line, it’s time for Douglas to choose between his duty and his desire – between the world he hates and the woman he loves.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
James Patrick has definitely crafted something fun here and is a work that the more I dig into it and its concept that I’d like to see in novel form. There are a lot of layers of character complexity being skimmed over to work in comic form. This series started in an interesting, somewhat complicated way that definitely grabbed me, and it manages to carry that energy into the rest of the series. He’s able to tap into an area that I definitely like when it comes to the many-worlds theory and making a play for climate change and denialism along the way. Which can make for a hard read. Here, he’s working with the incredibly talented Rubine whose work on Search for hu really delighted me. Here, he’s able to present a familiar world in a lot of ways while also delivering some surreal aspects and a creative way to showcase the shifting between dimensions.
With this issue bringing it to a close, it’s all about sacrifice and what we can do to make things better. Douglas is intent on getting the message back to his world but it requires doing the hard thing of not only sacrificing himself – which he was prepared to do from the start as the mission was always a one-way trip – but it also sacrifices a new life he found with the Maddie of this world. And it asks of her to make that sacrifice as well, to have him die twice. And even with both knowing what good will come from it, it’s still obviously hard because it’s an individual choice even if we can weigh it in the light of the billions it will save. Especially since there’s a whole lot of risk and an unlikely chance of success of even getting to the NEA facility where they can do the transmission because of how badly things have gone there in that pocket of the zone.
But with time running out on his own world, we get a solid sequence of him and his team making their way there and a good moment where Douglas gets to make a kind of amends and inspiration with Vernon as each reality is its own thing. But watching as the equation gets through is a great moment as it helps to save a lot of what’s left of his world, he also goes the distance to try and be that inspiration to be more than they were before. And a version of that does unfold in Maddie’s world as well as you can see how this can really do something to try and help humanity become more and grow. It’s in a terrible problematic phase about doing what’s right and looking at this from a species-level point of view but slowly and surely there are things like this that help to nudge it in the smallest of ways and seeing Douglas sacrifice his one for the all is very well done.
In Summary:
I really enjoyed this series overall with what it did and the complexity of what it’s trying to get across. As Patrik says in the afterword, it could have gone in a lot of different directions and I’d actually be curious to see how so many of them could have turned out – except for the one lettered in comic sans. The concept here is a solid one and it delivers a familiar thing in a way that resonates and works well. The script is solid with a good mix of action elements and character material with some great dialogue and difficult things for the characters to work through. I loved the look of it as Rubine consistently delivers (and avoids mullets as necessary) so that we have something that really strands out, especially in Briski’s work in the color design for these infected areas. Definitely a treat for those that discover it in collected form.
Grade: A-
Age Rating: 15+
Released By: AfterShock Comics
Release Date: January 4th, 2023
MSRP: $3.99
